


Haunted

by kitbug



Series: Agent Ren Lavellan AU [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, awkward starts, don't sneak up on elves with knives, two broken souls finding solace in each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 08:03:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12677769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitbug/pseuds/kitbug
Summary: Cullen finds Ren Lavellan on the battlements one night.  She isn’t the best company right after arriving to Skyhold.





	Haunted

**Author's Note:**

> BACKSTORY: [EllsterSMASH](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllsterSMASH) and I were talking about how much fun it would be if like… our quis was the lone survivor of the destruction of Clan Lavellan and came to Skyhold to help out their quis. And I fell in love with it. And I’ve been mentally kicking it around for weeks. Lately it’s gotten more serious. Like actual planning. And now there’s fic. Ell’s Athi is the Inquisitor. Ren is a little broken inside after the massacre. And now I’m hardcore shipping Ren and Cullen. Send help.

On a walk to clear his head after a particularly gruesome nightmare, Cullen was surprised to find he wasn’t the only one wandering the battlements.  Against the dim torchlight, he caught the silhouette of a small figure leaning on the wall overlooking the main yard.  He could barely make out pointed ears amidst a mess of short hair.  It was the Inquisitor’s only surviving clanmate, Ren Lavellan. 

She arrived astride her hart two weeks prior, both thinned and dirtied by three months of hard road travel, confirming what Leliana’s scouts had already reported.  No one of Clan Lavellan survived the massacre.  That she herself survived was purely chance.  She’d been scouting a new location for their aravels away from the unrest in Wycome when the attack came, and returned only to find bodies.

He scarcely saw her away from the Inquisitor’s side since arriving, and when he did, she was cagey and restless.  She even waited out the sometimes hours-long meetings at the War Table just outside the door, frightening the runners with her cold glare, until Athi re-emerged.  He understood why she did it, and had a similar hypervigilance around mages after Kinloch.

Ren’s vigilance didn’t seem to be holding tonight.  She stared blankly ahead, so lost in her thoughts she didn’t react to his approach.  Uncertainty of whether he should alert her to his presence by sound or touch made him pause, and then he was spared the decision.    


_ Maker, she’s quick _ , was the only thought Cullen had time for before his face was pressed into the top of the stones she had been leaning on.  His right arm, the one he’d half-reached for her with, was twisted painfully behind his back, and a cold blade as sharp as her reflexes rested against the side of his throat.  He didn’t try to resist, only waited calmly for her return to herself.

He’d done something similar to a templar that snuck up on him shortly after arriving in Kirkwall.

“Cullen?”  Her voice was rough and tight.    


He grunted an affirmative, careful not to move.  As quickly as he’d been pinned, he was released.  He rubbed the side of his neck uncomfortably as he stood upright again.  When he turned to face her, now behind him, she had the grace to look chagrined.

“I apologize,” Ren said stiffly.  She sheathed the knife back in her belt.  “You... surprised me.”

Cullen waved off her apology.  “The fault was mine.  I didn’t make enough noise.”  He mimicked her earlier position, leaning over the wall of the battlements, feigning far more ease than his pounding heart felt.  His voice managed to keep steady as he lightly asked, “You couldn’t sleep?”

Several seconds passed before she joined him at the wall.  She wouldn’t meet his curious gaze, instead opting to stare straight down into the dark yard below.  “No.”

“I couldn’t either,” he admitted and shifted slightly, uncertain of what or how much he should say.  “Nightmares.”  She flinched at that.  Until tonight, she had been difficult to read get a read on.   The haunted look she now bore was painfully familiar.  It was like looking in a mirror ten years ago.  “Do you… want to talk about it?”

Ren’s face hardened, and she bristled away from him like an angry cat.  “You couldn’t possibly understand what I’m feeling,  _ shem _ .”  The last word was spat, dripping with hatred.

He should have been offended by her tone, but all he could see was raw pain.  “About seeing your fellows cut down all around you?  The gut-wrenching guilt of being the lone survivor?”  It was more than he meant to reveal about himself, but it seemed to be what she needed to hear.  That someone understood, even just a little.  He chuckled mirthlessly at her shocked stare.  “I know more than you think.”

She flushed red all the way to the tips of her ears and hung her head slightly.  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.  “That’s twice tonight I’ve attacked you.”

Again, Cullen waved away her apology.  “Please, don’t worry about it.”  He smiled wryly.  “I especially deserved the first one for sneaking up on you.”

She gave him a shy smile in return, and he felt his heart skip a beat at the way it made her pale green eyes light up.  It was very different from the frigid glare that seemed a permanent fixture until now.  The hard lines and scars of her face softened, and he thought it suited her much better.  When she shivered slightly in the cold night air,  he jerked his head in the direction of the upper floors of the tavern where firelight still flickered through the windows.

“Would you care to join me for a drink?  It will be warmer there,” he asked and offered his arm.

Ren considered for a moment before nodding and accepting.  “I… yes.  I would like that.”  She swallowed thickly.  “We can talk.”


End file.
